Inflation numbers will likely see the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) hold fire on interest rates next week, local media reported on Wednesday.
"If you were thinking the RBA might make this federal election campaign interesting, think again," Macquarie Bank interest rate strategist Rory Robertson said in a research note, adding "there will be no interest rate hike next week."
Australia's consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.6 percent in the June quarter, lifting the annual rate to 3.1 percent and above the Reserve Bank's two to three percent target band.
The Australian Associated Press reported that economists had forecast a 1.0 percent rise in the quarter, for an annual pace of 3.4 percent.
The central bank had already predicted that the CPI would rise above the inflation band when it left the cash rate unchanged at its July board meeting.
Underlying measures of inflation, more critical to the interest rate outlook, averaged 2.7 percent in the 12 months to June, down from 3.05 percent in the year to March.
This was the lowest average annual rate since the June quarter of 2007.
Both measures of underlying inflation - the trimmed mean CPI and the weighted median CPI - rose 0.5 percent in the June quarter, when economists' forecasts had centered on a 0.8 percent increase./.